Louisville's Salt Spa grows up

New location, more modalities, more salt

From left, Kay Behrens, Susan Phillips and Sandra Wong enjoy a halotheraphy session at Louisville Salt Spa.The women are using the salt treatment to help alleviate different respiratory ailments, from sinus infections to seasonal allergies. The rooms are filled with three tons of dead sea salt, and then a halo generator grinds the salt into a mist that is blown into the rooms. The room becomes negatively ionized, which is calming for the nervous system. (Kira Horvath / Staff Photographer)

• What it claims to do: Teach people to self-regulate by creating new neuropathways in the brain, which offer flexibility and plasticity. This brings the brain back into an "optimal range," which can improve emotional regulation, attention, behavior and more.

Still, the process can be time-consuming and therefore expensive. It's not typically covered by insurance. And the effectiveness itself is controversial. Some studies have found it to be promising, while others have shown no effect, and others yet have been inconclusive.

• What happens in a session: Clients put on a special sensor-lined cap that measures brain waves, and a machine plots a "brain map" that identifies areas of the brain that are not functioning optimally, such as are over-aroused or under-aroused.

The machine then trains the brain to adjust arousal patterns to a more stable, optimal level, while the patient watches a movie. Specifically, the screen gets smaller and the audio gets quieter when the brain waves move into the too-high or too-low range, and when it adjusts to the optimal range (which happens naturally), the movie is played normally.

Advertisement

The premise: The brain wants to watch and make sense of the movie, and it will continue to adjust until it finds a way to achieve that reward.

Once a week, Kay Behrens sets aside time to stretch back in her chair, close her eyes and breathe in the salty air.

The Gunbarrel woman calls it a day at the beach. Although in landlocked Louisville, she's far from the ocean.

Behrens is a regular at the Salt Spa, an unusual dry aerosol therapy facility in Louisville that promotes the health benefits of inhaling salt particles.

She sits in a dim room that's completely covered in Dead Sea salt grains, from the small mounds spread across the floor and all the way up the walls to the ceiling. The air is kept humid and infused with Dead Sea salt, too. You can taste it on your lips, like you've been swimming in the ocean.

Behrens began visiting the Salt Spa a few years ago after she was diagnosed with a lung condition that causes her bronchial tubes to collect excessive mucus. Her regular doctor put her on an inhaler, but it wasn't working. She says she couldn't sleep through the night, because of her chronic coughing, and she struggled with regular nosebleeds.

Back then, the Salt Spa was located in Boulder, near the University of Colorado campus. But when a developer bought the land to build more student housing, the business had to relocate to Louisville, says co-owner Allen Tawa.

Although it was a lot of work tearing down the old salt cave and ordering in 12 tons of salt to build new ones, the change ended up being a blessing for the business.

The Salt Spa opened the Louisville location in a more-than-three-times bigger space, with enough rooms to add 10 new alternative modalities that can work in tandem with the salt spa. It also opened a branch in Lakewood.

Business has continued to grow, Tawa says.

In fact, co-owner Nita Desai — a western family physician who is also a certified Ayurvedic practitioner and holistic medical doctor — has a waiting list for new clients past January 2017.

"There's nobody else that I know of in this state that is running a clinic the way we're running it, a clinic that has an actual medical doctor who is the one who brought in all of these modalities," Tawa says. "Every single week, we get six to 10 people wanting to get into the practice. It's out of control. It's a good problem to have, but it's out of control."

However, there is no wait to visit the salt spa, or the other modalities offered here, which Desai often incorporates into her recommendations for her clients. The salt spa has 10 different recliners for people to stay one to two hours (the second hour is free and optional).

Advocates say this century-old therapy, halotherapy, is backed by research, Eastern and Western medical principles and, well, common-sense life experiences. Think about how you feel after a day at the beach: relaxed, your skin feels hydrated, your lungs feel healthy. Or how a salt bath can relax your aches and pains.

It's common to use saline in our noses and eyes and gargle salt water to treat a sore throat. Hospitals use saline drips.

Salt Spa advocates say the same principles apply here. Salt has an anti-inflammatory effect on mucus, and salt's negative charge sticks to the positively charged mucus membranes, drawing out the water and liquefying the mucus to be expelled, Tawa says. People claim it helps with asthma, allergies and other respiratory and sinus problems, like Behrens' condition.

Advocates say it's no quick fix, though. Because, as it draws out the mucus, it can actually make coughing worse, before it gets better. People looking for a "magic pill" tend to be some of the critics of the therapy, Behrens says, because they try it once and it doesn't work.

She says despite her initial skepticism, it worked for her. She says she can now sleep on her back without coughing and hasn't had a cold in years; her condition makes her more susceptible.

"I came to the point where I didn't want to be on steroids anymore. I decided to commit to it, and if it didn't work, I would at least know," Behrens says.

Desai points to one study of halotherapy that found that nearly 80 percent of patients experienced reduced or no symptoms after 14 to 24 treatments. These people didn't need any additional therapy for a six-month average.

Still, some traditional medical professionals don't recommend it, noting there is no credible scientific evidence that it works. Skeptics chalk up anecdotes and the placebo effect.

Other modalities

The other alternative modalities at the Salt Spa are also on that edge, where they might be accepted in some western medical circles but aren't beyond scientific question. Some, like PEMF (Pulsed ElectroMagnetic Fields therapy), have been FDA approved to treat some conditions, such as to help improve bone density, although the Salt Spa uses the machine for a variety of other issues, too.

During a session, the therapist puts tubes on or around your body. These tubes carry the electromagnetic energy, which is applied to the surface of your skin, with varying degrees of intensity. You feel a slight pulsing, or tapping, on certain points of the body, as they're stimulated by the electromagnetic field.

The spa also offers ClearMind Neurofeedback (see accompanying box); an FDA-approved medical device to ensure the lymphatic system is working well (Lymphatic Enhancement Therapy), and an FDA-approved cold laser, proven to eliminate pain associated with plantar fasciitis for 90 percent of clients, Tawa says.

The Salt Spa also claims to be the only medical practice in Colorado to offer digitized thermometry. This tool, which the Salt Spa just got last month, measures the temperature at 110 points throughout the body (organs, lymph systems), then measures them again after the body has been in stress, to see if the points are responding to the stress in a healthy way.

"We've expanded quite a bit. We can literally see everything from A to Z, outside of surgery at this point, and we don't plan on getting into surgery," Tawa says. "It's all in the realm of doing holistic, natural health care, getting people off traditional medicine and using a natural, drug-free approach to health."

Boulder is pretty good at producing rock bands, and by "rock," we mean the in-your-face, guitar-heavy, leather-clad variety — you know, the good kind. For a prime example, look no farther than BANDITS. Full Story